Project Warlock

First of all we released the demo that is a tweaked version of one of the Arctic levels. It has an extra helping of weapons that aren’t usually found on this particular level to give a better way taste of things to come in the full game. Which is handily available on this very steam page for everyone who would like to get their hands on the real deal.

Plus the demo level’s snowy setting is to balance out the HUGE SCORCHING BALL OF SUN that is still bbqing us outside.

Second thing we’re dropping today is the official Project Warlock codes. This wouldn’t have been a proper tribute to the games of old without some additional commands you could input to get some of those spells, weapons and keys, would it now?

You enter the codes by punching them in on the keyboard during the game:

gotoeXmYY - teleports the player to a set level, where X stands for the episode (where X is a number from 1-5), and where YY stands for the map number (where YY can be any number between 01-12, with level five going up to 11 only)

Alright. “following weeks” turned into “months” and we went underground to make sure the next time we wrote something was precisely when announcing the new patch. Which in hindsight wasn’t the best idea as this resulted in the longest spell of silence on our end.

After last patch we began working on three things at the same time – a new, reworked demo that we showed during ’19 PAX East (and one that will be available at a later date), a new batch of fixes including the oft requested new difficulty level, and a bunch of new cosmetic features for the game that coalesced into something more substantial.

Unfortunately this all happened at the same time and we did not choose the juggling order. Or perhaps choose it poorly, as the work on each started before the previous task was finished. As you realise Buckshot is actually one man army programming wise and this proved to be too much. In short – we planned poorly, work started on all three, eventually so did the Q&A and this amounted to a torrent of things that needed to be incorporated at the same time. Which lead to cycles of bug squashing, resubmitting and reworking things that seemed to never end. Until yesterday.

So: The patch is launching today. The demo should be available in June.The cosmetic coalescence – a bit after that.

Without further ado:

v1.0.1.0 Changelog

Features

Added new difficulty level

Improvements

Balanced the starting area of E1M1

Balanced the after-elevator-area in E1M1 after getting the yellow key

Improved the hitbox of Ceiling Decorations in Medieval setting

Improved the hitbox of the Street Lamps in Industrial setting

Adjusted the time before "press any key" is activated after a level is finished

Adjusted thorn bushes in Cemetery to better show its damage state and to minimize confusion

Adjusted font size in difficulty description window

Changed the Hardcore Difficulty icon in Difficulty menu to fit the achievements icon

Bugs

Fixed a bug where CRT shader settings would not save between the levels

Fixed a bug where look would not work on a gamepad

Fixed a bug where the player could not view the stages info in the roadmap with the controller

Fixed a bug where the player could not buy perks with the controller

Fixed a bug where the player could not select pause menu options after death

Fixed a bug where "Controls" title would not be translated to other languages in main menu

Fixed a bug where value for "Curve" in CRT Shader would not display properly

Fixed a bug where it was possible to bring up the Main Menu while loading the game

Fixed an exploit where enemies could boost the player up to skip the red key in E2M1

Fixed a bug where enemies could not enter the tunnel in E2M1

Fixed a bug where the game would render unresponsive due to pause menu when alt+tabbing the game in the pre-mission screen

Fixed a small texture flicker in E5M9

Fixed a bug where player score would not be properly displayed at intermission screen

Fixed a bug where grave decorations that are not destroyable would have collision with the player

Fixed texture flicker in E5M1 for the secret doors

Fixed a misplaced wall texture in E1M2

Fixed missing wall textures in E5M2

Fixed a bug where gallery tab would not close the previously opened art on pressing the "esc" button

Fixed the missing minimap in E5M11

Fixed a bug where camera would clip through lava in E5M11

Removed redundant double "You Died" message on death

Fixed a bug where the minigun turret would not attack the evil seal

Fixed a visual bug where the firelance would not display the VFX correctly when aimed to the sky

Fixed an UI selection bug for the confirmation window when buying upgrades

Fixed various blockers where the player would not be able to get out of a room when the player got over the wall through collision exploits in E5

Fixed a bug where the evil seal would not be visible from its other side

Fixed a bug where player would be moved up upon collision with enemies

thank you very much for your precious feedback – here`s a short roadmap for upcoming weeks.

One - a patch is coming up next week. Hopefully Monday, but no later than mid of the week. It’s going to have more than twenty bugs squashed and tweaks, uhh… tweaked. Secondly – in the next two weeks the requested extra difficulty level (“Hard but with more lives”) will be introduced along the existing ones. And lastly - those of you missing the old head bob are going to find it “togglable”. Ok, and lastly lastly – thanks for staying with us. We’ll have more things to announce in the following weeks – we needed the time to lay out a plan that starts with a February update. Hopefully this is something you guys will enjoy.

Thank you very much for the reception and feedback on Project Warlock’s launch. We’re really busy with resolving all the issues you brought up and this is something we are committed to for the nearest future. For now we felt it’s crucial to approach two of the most annoying ones. Hence – a hotfix due out today.

Even despite lowering the headbob significantly over the last few iterations of the game this is still problematic for some. To make sure this is resolved as quickly as possible we decided to turn it off completely for the time being. Thus making the game playable for gamers who didn’t feel well because of it. This is a temporary solution – we’ll look at your feedback and release a tweaked version in one of the future updates. For now – please enjoy the game without the headbob.

The second issue deals with spells erroneously displayed in the Hub. As of the hotfix you will only see the spells once you pick up a corresponding Spell Book in the game’s levels. And then – provided you have enough points stashed on you – you will be able to unlock them for use in game.

This is only the first of fixes we have planned so watch this space. And once again - thank you very much for all your support, constructive feedback and – keep on blowing those monsters to tiny pixel bits.

Thanks for your patience everybody. Today we are launching on Steam and we hope that everyone enjoys the experience that Jakub and the whole team at Buckshot poured their hearts into making. We hope that shotgunning, rocket propelling, torching, freezing and crushing chunky pixel enemies to the tune of rocking soundtrack will be something you guys will enjoy as much as we were when making the game.

Project Warlock is a labour of love and hopefully this will show. Enjoy!